Its called the "commerce clause" and even "originalist" extraordinaire Anton Scalia has no problems with that (see his concurrence in Gonzales vs Rauch).

When you can show me an Internet system that only provides service within a state, and does not transmit packets across state lines, I will believe that that one particular system (but not others generally) should be free from Federal regulation. Otherwise the power to regulate interstate commerce in the Constitution provides the authority. This was uncontroversial in the 19th Century when the Interstate Commerce Commission was created (1886) to regulate railways, and did so within states, since they carried interstate commerce.

I can see it now. Target prices all of their merchandise in a fictitious store currency called "Target Dollars", and they have big marquee in the front of the store showing the current Target Dollar to Bitcoin exchange rate. And then when you checkout, you find out exactly how want bitcoins are required to walk out of the store with your purchase.

You can find an even more intrusive example, endorsed by none other than 'Mr. Originalist' Anton Scalia himself in Gonzales v. Raich (2005) in which the Supreme Court held that medical cannabis grown at home by a patient for her own exclusive private use (also at home) was properly regulated by the Federal Government (i.e. prohibition enforced), despite state law to the contrary, due to the interstate commerce provision.

This case was rather similar to the Wickard case, which Scalia also explicitly endorsed in his concurrence.

Wow! Which state is it that has no 'products or services' from other states moving over its wires? That's as bad an Internet connectivity as North Korea, maybe worse!

Or perhaps it is because they reach an asymptotic limit at the state line, and become undefined? And are created ex nihilo upon entering the state? There are no wires that only exist between states but not within any of them.

Based on the above, I would say 'logic' is not your strong suit here. And the bone you have to pick is with the 19th century, during the heyday of laissez faire, not 1942 and the New Deal (Wickard v. Filburn). Regulation of 'local lines' owned by companies that use them for interstate commerce has uncontroversial when the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1882 - it did exactly what you claim is illogical.

Oddly enough, I don't believe you. Please substantiate.

You should brush up on your own history. As much as I despise the Inquisition, the Crusades (where massacres were indeed common), and other depravities of Christendom which are real - I must protest when imaginary depravities are added to the list.

The Catholic Church never burned Muslims at the stake. They burned Christian heretics at the stake. Thus self-proclaimed Christians, suspected of being Muslims or Jews in secret, were burned alive (if they confessed to being secret Muslims or Jews, then they received the 'mercy' of being strangled before being burned). But the execution was not for being Muslim or Jew, it was for practicing Christianity in a heretical manner. The Inquisition had no authority over non-Christians.

Also the assertion that "through the inquisitional killed all muslims that did not convert to Catholicism on the spot" is flatly untrue. Muslims were actually permitted to stay for a time after the Reconquista's completion, then once the monarchy (not the church Inquisition) decided that Muslims would no longer be tolerated, they were given the choice of conversions* or expulsion. The mass executions of Muslims you imagine never happened.

*A bad choice as it turned out. Any self-proclaimed Christian in the lands controlled by the Iberian monarchies who had Jewish or Muslim ancestors was perpetually suspected of heresy, and in danger of persecution/prosecution by the Inquisition.

I have actually read Van der Waerden's books on Mespotamian mathematics and astronomy (I have copies of them at hand). His "belief" is not evidence of any kind. He is simply supposing, without any supporting evidence.

And Boyer, who wrote his history of mathematics 50 years ago (1991 is a reprint, he died in 1976), was no expert in ancient mathematics. He has been called the "Gibbon of Mathematics" which is a very good analogy, since Gibbon's work represents a compilation of everything known and believed about the Romans, written from the perspective of an 18th century European, complete with moral interpretations drawn from contemporary cultural viewpoints. It was a work that says at least as much about Gibbon and Europe of the time, as it does about the Romans. Similarly Boyer's beliefs represent the assumptions of a western scholar trained in the 1930s.

No one has yet shown any evidence at all that the suryas actually draw from Mesopotamian sources. Saying it doesn't make it true.

You are confused. Pluto was not "demoted". It in its old (inaccurate) classification it was the smallest and last planet to be discovered, a Johnny-Come-Lately.

What Tombaugh really did was discover the first of a whole new class of objects - the Kuiper Belt Objects that extend far past the planets. And Pluto is its king - it is the largest and most prominent of all the KBOs (Eris, is queen, having the exact same diameter as far as we can tell, but is more distant and dimmer).

Discovering a whole new class of objects beats discovering yet another planet.

Says the AC who does not know the Abyssal Plain is covered with clay not sand! Your knowledge of the ocean evidently begins and ends with a day at the beach.

You make a good Exhibit A why scientific study of the Universe is necessary.

While I agree that it is a bit frightening to start with Earth - we are already doing it in a vast unplanned, unregulated experiment.. The purpose of these proposals is to evaluate techniques to offset the world-wide climate modification experiment already in progress. Not doing anything about that current experiment that is still accelerating as releases of the the major climate modification chemical increases year after year is a lot more frightening.

According to this analysis the time could be as short as 200 years, if we cut off all sunlight falling on Venus so that it radiates heat away as fast as possible.

This assumes though that there is no problem with having 460 C rock only 30 m below the surface. The upheavals that will develop as the crust shrinks, creating fissures, may complicate this optimistic scenario.

Thanks, you hammer my point home. This is the kind of crony "regulation" when you have local communities regulating a major corporation. And if they try to strike too hard a bargain that might impact profit margins, the cable company will simply give service to that area low priority to teach a lesson to other communities. This actually happened in my town with Verizon which has the cable/broadband monopoly, and which halted FIOS roll-out (never to be resumed) when the city wanted to negotiate a better deal.

Internet access at competitive speeds is an essential service, which cable companies have effective monopolies on in most places.

Worstall has part of an argument against the Times opinion piece, but he makes an even bigger whopper with his "proof" that no one wants taxes raised, because people aren't voluntarily gifting their wealth to the Federal Government by the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

The real problem with cable companies is not that they "bundle" to create fixed service packages - it is that they are effective monopolies providing an essential service, that escape any meaningful regulation that such a model absolutely requires for to protect the interests of the public. As long as this situation persists any service pricing scheme is going to gouge the customers for Internet access as well as TV access.

The weakness of regulation is nicely conveyed by the the FCC itself:

Your local franchising authority - the city, county or other governmental organization authorized by your state to regulate cable television service - legally may (but is not required to) regulate the rate your cable TV provider can charge for "basic" cable service. The rates you pay for other cable programming and services, such as expanded cable channel packages, premium movie channels and pay-per-view sports events, are set by your cable TV provider.

So no regulation by any government body for "non basic services". And "basic service" regulation is entirely optional, and left piecemeal to lower levels of government where it is always ineffective in exercising oversight for national corporations which practice cartel-like collusion to protect their margins and market share.